Boost retirement savings now: Experts suggest where to start

By Dave Burdick, The Denver Post

Posted:
07/01/2013 11:27:48 PM EDT

David Estabrook, a certified financial planner and branch manager at Raymond James in Englewood, says that, to start, any action is good. Estabrook, unlike many certified financial planners, does not have an investment minimum for his services.

"It's where I come from," he says. "Oftentimes the people that need planning or advice the most don't get it because they don't meet the minimum."

He occasionally meets folks who are in pretty dire straits, and he says that the first step to getting out is mustering up the courage to face the problem and sitting down in his office.

"I really believe that people need to talk to financial advisers and financial planners," he says, comparing the help offered by such professionals to the specialized help provided by dentists and doctors — and plumbers.

"When my son broke his arm, could I have set it? Maybe?"
Worth a shot? Probably not.

"Someone retired 50 years ago, and they got their gold watch, and they got their pension check, and they lived for three more years and then died," he says. "It was pretty simple."

That's not the case anymore. Here are some of the things that Estabrook and other professionals offered up as early steps for people who find themselves closer to their ideal retirement age and further from their ideal retirement financial situation than they'd like.

If your employer offers a 401(k) match, contribute at least that much money each year. It's free money, says Jerry Gill at M.J. Smith and Associates in Greenwood Village.

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Spend less. If it sounds familiar, says the Center for Retirement Research's Steven Sass, it should. We hear calls to downsize over and over again and yet we don't do it. But at this point, it's the fastest, simplest way to make your eventual retirement a reality.

"Moving to a more sustainable standard of living is immediate, and you can feel it," says Sass.

This means moving to a cheaper house and cutting back on luxuries.

Work longer. Plan to stay in your current job longer, or if you're a bit closer to your goal, seek out part-time or less strenuous work that enables you to keep your current savings untouched for another few years.

Use an online calculator. Studies show that the simple use of online calculators is correlated with saving more and spending less. Sass recommends the suite of tools at his organization's new site, squaredaway.bc.edu.

There are calculators for everyday budgeting, retirement, figuring out where to cut spending — and plenty of others.

Find a financial planner and get their opinion on your situation, and maybe enlist their help. Many financial planners have investment minimums. For example, some who offered their expertise for this story have a $1 million investment minimum. Others, like Estabrook, don't.

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